Field Trip Friday: March 26

Field Trip Friday is a weekly trip around the field of YA with stops at the most helpful, interesting or otherwise entertaining news.

The Big News This Week?
Bologna Book Fair. In the words of author Melissa Marr, "It's the biggie for international sales in 'kidlit.'" Follow the #bbf10 hashtag to see what's hot. According to agent Ginger Clark, the big things this year appear to be dystopias and angels.

The Gatekeeper suggests you eat your words, kind of literally: "Count how many "she/he"s and protagonist names there are in your first page," then eat a mini-cupcake for each one and see how you feel about it.

"Now we’re up to 1200 pages of reading. That’s the full Lord of the Rings trilogy, including the introductions from every published edition since 1954, the Prologue, “a note on Shire reckoning”, Appendices A, B, C, D, and E, the Quenya alphabet and pronunciation guide, and the Index. Every week."

This Week In Contests

In case you haven't noticed, we kind of adore agents Kathleen Ortiz and Suzie Townsend around here. Run over and enter their current contest, and win an 8 minute Skype chat with them!

Kate is the author of After the Fall, coming January 24, 2017 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. A former teacher and grant writer, she now owns a treehouse-building business in the Ozarks and hosts the Badass Ladies You Should Know interview series.

Great recap of the week! And you mentioned my blog..yay! If only my 11 year old self would have known how many people would one day be reading her diary on a blog! Wait, I think first she'd want to know what a blog or even the internet is! (does that make my 31 year old self sound old??!!)